SOMEWHERE, SOMETIME

I awoke, face down on a plastic cushion of sorts. My cheek sat in a puddle of spittle that had glued it in place. With a thrwup, it came loose. I tilted my head slightly and the movement felt like each cell in my brain was wrapped in barbed wire. I saw vomit was in chunks among this pleather seat I was curled up on. 

My vomit of course. Was I eating something blue last night?  

I was in the backseat of a car. An old school one. Chewy was asleep on my curled up legs. He still had that ridiculous spiked collar. He opened one wizened eye and started stretching. It gave me enough encouragement to do the same. I propped my hands under me and even louder, THRWUP, as I pulled my naked body off the rest of the seat. The only thing I had on was a necklace with a clump of leather where a medallion should be. 

Some souvenir I had bought I guess?

I looked past it to my waist and below.  

Naked. 

Oh god. 

I peered outside. The light made me physically wince. The whole world felt like it was dumped in molasses that smelled like barfed up cured meats and cheese-whiz. I was out in a parking lot in some strip mall. There was a H&M store and not a car around here. That was good. But I felt bad about whos’s car I was in. My neon throw up would definitely stain.

Wait. Behind the driver seat was the same tear where padding was coming out. I fingered the hole. It looked just like the one my car had. It was where my nephew found my pocket knife and dug in during a road trip to the Grand Canyon. 

This is my car. 

All my stuff seemed where I left it. Bags and all.

But how did I get it? Was this the tow yard? 

I rubbed my eyes and looked around again. I still was parked like a jackass in a strip mall parking lot. Oh cool, there was a Johnny Rockets far down on the corner. 

I drank the rest of some warm ice melt from my drive thru sweet tea I got like two days ago. Or was it three? Fuck. Who knows. I just needed hydration of any sorts.

Did I have an episode? Or was it just the booze? 

I remember a Voodoo lady. Had she helped me? Did she give me money? She definitely told me where my car was. God she made me drink that disgusting shit. Queasiness washed over me as I remembered the foul egg smelling liquid. Then it hit me harder as I saw the empty bottle of moonshine on the passenger's seat, my clothes crumpled under it. I was able to get my head out the door as I spewed. 

I put on my pants. And I used my old shirt to wipe out the back seat best I could. I had tears in my eyes partly from the exertion and mostly because of the shame. I was pathetic and stupid. My throat was burning, I smelled like BO and a cajun’s trashcan left in the sun. A bender was the last thing I needed to do in this city. I remembered the way Shades rolled to a stop after I hijacked his car. If he or his police buddies were looking for me, stumbling around Bourbon Street was the worst place to be. But I was still a free man. Maybe it was the last place they’d look? Maybe in my drunkenness I blended in as another tourist? Like a real Jason Bourne? Maybe no one was after me, afterall? 

Fuck. 

“This is a bad look. Pretty pathetic.” Chewy said, perched on the seat. 

“Yeah, I know my little dude,” I placed my hands on my knees and spat. I thought for a moment. It was funny how he spoke. His little lips curled with the words, like an old man puffing on a pipe. His voice was dry and deep. Not at all how I would think. 

I looked at him and pointed. “Is that a British accent?”

He stretched again. “What's it to you? Aren’t you more concerned that I'm talking to you at all?” He asked. 

“I just thought you would be Australian, cause, you know you are a cattle dog.”

“I learned by watching the BBC.” He replied nonchalantly.

Now that I thought for a moment. He did sound eerily similar to Clive Owen on the way he would draw out his words and rumble through nouns. 

I don’t know why I wasn’t as concerned as I should be. Chewy always seemed smart to me. This far south anything could happen, I was an undercover cop for a bit, I talked to my dead wife, and that voodoo woman… What had she done? What had she said? It was like a dream trickling away on waking. Her words were slipping through my fingers… I tapped my temple to try and pry the memory free. But alas, it didn’t matter, I had to keep accepting what was in front of me. That’s one thing grief teaches you. 

I took a deep breath. I’ve come to the conclusion that on this journey people, Chewy included, were getting more and more strange as I went. So maybe it was me. 

“So you talk now!” I clapped and grinned. “This is a huge occasion. I’m definitely crazy. I’ve finally lost it. Should I just kill myself right now?” 

“Oh so you can start speaking to ghosts but you draw the line at talking dogs. Seems finicky to me.” He hopped down and circled around me wagging his tail. I tentatively scratched his head. He seemed to enjoy that just as he did before he started talking. At least he hasn't changed too much. And it was true. He had the most personality a dog could have. I often thought he followed TV shows pretty well. The way he looked at me and grinned, how he whined. He was basically talking to me for all his life. But now he was just verbal about it. Quite articulate too. 

“I guess you’re right.” I said. “I mean why can’t you speak? Apart from not having the right vocal cords, or the brain function, or the…”

“Shhh. Scratch more and talk less… Oh yeah that's the spot” He continued. “But if you have to continue being so daft. I suggest you just chalk it up to Madame Lyra giving you that tincture last night. Oh yeah you remember, I can tell you recall cause you are green in the face. It smelled great to me. But whatever she did, she opened up your third eye, or your seven chakras, or detoxified our astral connections or some shit.”

“Chewy, it’s weird to hear you curse. Especially when you sound like you should be narrating a nature documentary.”

He jumped around me and excitedly spouted curses. “Fuck, Shit, Cunt, Asshole!” He sat back down, growing stern. Sarcasm poured from his little doggy lips. “And my favorite, Cocksucker.”

I felt flushed. Am I going to faint? Or throw up? I needed to sit down. 

“Now,” He continued. “Are you going to grow up? I’m four years old for god's sake. And quite frankly I'm much more put together than you. I mean look at you.” He shook his head. “It’s been hard keeping you alive this trip. It’s like trying to catch Ms. Taggert’s cat. Fucking full-time job.”

“The little white one?”

“Yes. Snowball.” But he said it with so much disdain it surprised me. I didn’t know he could muster such a hateful feeling. He always seemed so bubbly to me.

“What’s wrong with Snowball?”

“Oh she has been… Plotting. Plotting our houses' downfall for some time now. I wouldn’t be surprised if she was behind this Tim person. The real one pulling all the strings.''

I did think the little cat was devious in spirit. Walking along the fence while Chewy lost his mind below. But I had a hard time believing she was anything more than aloof. I think that was more the dog side of Chewy talking.

“Anyways…” 

Chewy snapped out of his low rumbling growl, thinking about Snowball. “Yes. Anyway.”

“What now?” 

“Well,” He jumped up into the back seat. And then hopped into the passenger side. “Let’s go! What are you waiting for? Tim has half a day's head start already. He was in that plaza where you got your cards read. I could smell him all over Lyra! He’s playing with us! It’s a chase! Like he’s playing fetch with us! God, who doesn’t love fetch?” 

I propped open the driver door and stared at him. 

“Uhhh what do you mean he’s playing with us? Fetch?”

“Look, we could be in this car for years and I couldn’t explain all the intricacies of fetch to you. But yes, he is playing with us. I mean… Are you surprised he isn’t threatened by your pudgy self? You thought… What, that he was worried for his life? Come on.” He snickered like a jackal. “He’s playing with us. But we are gonna find him and then we’ll show him our teeth. Show him this is not a game. Then he’ll realize his fuck-up. Should have sent some more folks to get us off his tail in New Mexico.”

My Jason Bourne fantasy had quickly faded. I did look at my flabby self, shirtless still. All this was a lot. But learning he was letting us get to him confused me and... Scared me. But most of all it pissed me off. I was gunning for his life and he didn’t care. Chewy the talking dog was right, he thinks he could take my wife from me and then laugh at me. Play with me. With us. 

“Alright.” I slammed the car door behind me. Head still pounding but eyes straight ahead. The feel of the cracking leather wheel under my hands steadied me. I tightened until my knuckles were white.

“I thought that’d piss you off. Good.” Chewy laughed his hyena laugh again.

“Let’s hit it.” I slammed it into drive. And smoke poured from the wheel wells as I pulled the car around. I flew to the exit eyeing the road ahead.

~

I had stopped right before exiting the parking lot. One, to throw up again. And two I didn’t really know where I was heading. Momentum fell rapidly away.

Left or right? 

“Oh for heaven's sake. You don’t know where we are going, do you?” Chewy moaned.

“I, uh…. don’t have a phone. No maps of the area either.” I was blushing again. God why was I so embarrassed around my pet. This was all sorts of wrong. But so was everything.

“Well you don’t need one. Just follow the road signs just like how we got here.” 

“Ok.” I put it into drive. Hesitated. Winced. Put it back into park. “Ok, I don't know where we are going.” 

“That’s what I thought. See. Full time job with you.” He sighed and pawed at the glove box. His little paw curled around the latch and it dropped open. In there was my revolver and the box of extra rounds. A large playing card fell out. It was oversized and had the sprawling of a large tower on it. The way it fluttered down, the painted image, it all struck a chord in my head. 

I remembered.

~

She placed the first card down. Her wrinkled hands seemed so gentle. She must have been a grandmother. Or maybe she cared for her cards like they were her children. Before me sat a card with the words THE TOWER printed on the bottom frame. And the tower was clear and it was in peril. It was large and obsidian on a field of purple flowers. Stretching to the heavens. No doors. Not on this side. And I knew it didn’t have any on the other side. It was a monument. An alien stalagmite in a meadowed field. And it was on fire. The top half ablaze. For better or for worse I did not know. Even as I realized there were people trapped in it... I still thought, for better or for worse, I did not know.

Carved into the tip of the tower was a window no person could squeeze through. But two individuals tried. They pushed themselves forwards trying to escape the fires that surged around them. That started to consume them. One male and one female. In their panic they were wedged. Their limbs tangled, the sharp edge of the window cutting into them. I saw them bleed and their skin boil from the heat. 

Below was a knight atop a horse. He wore white shining armor and had a dark, multi-colored plume of feathers from his mantle. His mask was up and he smiled. A face I knew. It was him. It was death. He sat atop his horse and wept with joy at the fire he had set.

“The Tower is catastrophe.” She said, “I can see it in your eyes, you know this card well. This is what has happened to you. Your world’s asunder. I am sorry, child. A lover should never have to bear that pain.” She sighed heavily. Her mask of a showman fell away. And before me was a true soothsayer. She was a kind stranger. She didn’t want to lay the cards before me. I knew. It hurt her as much as it hurt me. But she was going to. She had to. “The cards must be laid,” She held my hand and shook it. My drunk eyes found her and I felt sober in that second. “The cards must be laid and they must be SEEN. They must.” I knew she was right. But I was terrified. I didn’t want to. 

“They were always going to be laid.” She could almost hear what I was thinking. She continued trying to ease me. Or to warn me. “They’ve already been laid, before you or I were ever born. They were always before us. Drawn by the unseen hand that lays our life's path. But we did not know. To get our power back we must reveal them to ourselves. Now you must reveal and revel in them. These are your cards and it will help you to see them. To know them. Do you understand?”

I nodded and a teardrop fell onto the tower card. 

“This card tells you of your past. You search for this man? This thing?” She said it with disgust.

I nodded again.

“I understand. I do not agree. But I understand. The tower has burned but maybe, well.. Many things are thrown into the fire and are better for it. Many times the land is more fertile... It does not have to be just ruin… it is change.”

“Next card” I slurred out.

She breathed deep. And pulled it forth.

~

“I remember this card!” I told Chewy. The faces seemed different as I looked it over now in the light of day. It wasn’t so menacing, so horrifying. The knight was helmed, face obscured too. 

“Mhmmm good.” He replied. 

“But, this card is about the past. Not where we should go. That’s how she did it right? Past, present, future?”

“Yeah from what I understood that’s what she said too.” 

“Fuck, I don’t rememebr the other cards. Do you?” I asked.

He smiled and shook his head. He wagged his tail a little bit, hopeful I wouldn’t be angry. “I was busy trying to look out for Tim. He was all over that plaza. I don’t really pay much attention to your conversations unless they are about me of course and how cute I am. Then I'll probably get pets.” He wagged his tail even more. “But what is on the back?”

I flipped it over and saw written on the black astral backing of the card was a silver word. One written in a Sharpy most likely.

“You can’t read?” I asked. Excited. 

“I’m a dog.” he said bluntly, like I was an idiot to even ask.  

“It says NASHVILLE!” I laughed long and hard. He joined me and howled in excitement. “She knew I was not in any state to remember anything! Thank god!” I kissed the card. But looking at the tower gave me serious hesitation. It was terrible and full of suffering. I threw it into the back seat. And wiped my mouth clean. 

“Let's go!” I said. “And you didn’t believe in me!” I said. 

Chewy chuckled. “You are lucky you have lots of people pulling for you.” He leaned on the center console and licked the side of my face. 

“Hmm.” I wiped off my cheek. “I don’t know how I feel about that now that you can talk.” I laughed nervously.

He leaned back in and whispered. “Don’t be weird about it.” while licking me again.